Chris Dodd for President

Spazeboy:

Ned Lamont came out to Chicago this past weekend for the YearlyKos convention — and he wasn’t running for anything. He came to support our Democratic Senator Chris Dodd at Saturday’s Presidential Forum and subsequent breakout session. So I asked him to tell me why it was so important for him to travel halfway across the country to support Chris Dodd. The video below is his response:

Bob Geiger has a long write-up of a meeting he and a number of other bloggers had with Senator Dodd on Saturday after the Yearly Kos Presidential Forum. Geiger touches on a number of the topics under discussion in the meeting, including Dodd's strong push-back on Bill O'Reilly, damage to the rule of law and civil liberties under the Military Commissions Act and FISA, political strategy around ending the Iraq war, the strategic considerations of impeachment, and the state of the presidential race. I want to draw out this particular passage on fighting to end the Iraq war with principle and conviction:

"I think we walked off the Defense Department Authorization bill too quickly. I think we should have stayed right with that. Not that these other issues aren't important… The ethics stuff is important and the SCHIP for the kids is important -- I don’t want to minimize the importance of those things, but nothing is more important than the Iraq war. You've got to stick with it." When Pachacutec of Firedoglake emphasized the need for Senate Democrats to get stronger spines and "even if you lose, pick a fight," Dodd immediately agreed. "I think it's much more valuable to get 20 votes for something that means something than when you try to get 51 votes," Dodd said.

Dodd made clear that he's the candidate with the conviction to lead the fight to end the Iraq war. Conviction means not bowing to political expediency, but standing up for your beliefs and demanding that Congress do what is right. Senator Dodd understands that the bold position isn't always going to be able to muster a slim majority, let alone the super majority needed to get past Republican filibusters.

Dave Johnson of Seeing The Forest writes about a conversation he had with Senator Dodd and other bloggers at Yearly Kos:

A few bloggers had a meeting with Senator Dodd on Saturday. This is a serious candidate for President who should be receiving much more attention. We had a great, honest and open conversation. Unlike some of the conversations I have had with candidates he listens and hears and responds. This is a thinking man, with a great deal of experience and a lot to offer this country. (Note this on his website: "Support the Netroots") One subject we talked extensively about was impeachment. He said something that will shape my views and helped me understand how a politician at his level has to think about serving the public. I'll characterize it here. He said that when he considers how he should be spending his time a key question that he has to ask is how is the average person understanding this. The average person might not be paying very much attention to the news, might not consider him or herself to be "on the" left or right. That person is trying to get by and deal with life's problems, like paying the mortgage, getting health care, etc. So when THAT person looks at what the Congress and Senate are doing, the question is, "How does this help ME?" And if the Democrats spend time on impeachment they are open to the Republican lie and spin machine telling the public they are not serving THEM.

On Saturday at the Yearly Kos Convention, Senator Dodd sat down with one of my favorite bloggers, Glenn Greenwald. Greenwald's site is well known for his investigations into the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance of American citizens and his eloquent defenses of the rule of law. The interview was a real meeting of the minds -- the only presidential candidate who's made restoring the Constitution a central part of his campaign and one of the blogosphere's leading advocates for an unmitigated defense of the Constitution. If you like the work Senator Dodd has done to fight for the rule of law, against the use of torture, against the politicization of the Justice Department, and for restoring the Constitution, I think you'll enjoy reading Greenwald's interview. Here is an excerpt of Senator Dodd's interview with Greenwald:

GG: One of the things that I think could be invigorating about your campaign is that you are making these constitutional issues the centerpiece of your campaign. You said in the debate that one of the most critical issues we face is the assault on our constitution, which you indicated was unprecedented. Can you talk about why this assault on the constitution is so fundamentally different than anything that has come before it? You were in the Senate during the Iran-contra scandal under Reagan. What is it about what they are doing now that makes it so fundamentally different? CD: Well, it's so pervasive. I mean, its domestic. It's foreign. And it is has been so calculated on so many levels. With Iran-contra, Reagan wanted to give money to the contras. I didn't like the motivation, but it was very targeted, focused point.